Kennels, catteries and the other option
An alternative to kennels and catteries in York.
Your animals stay in your house. I come to them — for a night, or for a visit or two a day — and while I am there the house gets looked after as well.
Most people who write to me have already been round the other options and are weighing one specific thing: whether their animal copes better with a change of building or a change of company. This page sets out what genuinely differs, and where a kennel or a cattery is still the better answer. Both of those are honest questions and neither has one answer.
What actually changes
Six practical differences, rather than an argument about who loves animals more. Some of them will matter to your animal and some of them will not.
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The journey
There isn’t one. Nobody goes in a car, nobody arrives somewhere unfamiliar, and nothing has to be collected before you leave for the airport or the morning after you land.
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The building
Your dog isn’t sharing a run, a fence line or a corridor with animals he has never met. That is not a comment on how any kennel is run — it is simply a different arrangement, and it matters more to some animals than to others.
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The smell of the place
Cats read a room by scent, and a pen is a room with none of hers in it. At home she keeps her own windows, her own hiding places and her own furniture, and the only thing that changes is who fills the bowl.
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The routine
Feeding order, walk times, which door is allowed open, who is permitted on the bed. Your notes decide all of that rather than an establishment’s timetable, and I follow the note instead of my own habit.
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Who turns up
Kennels and catteries are staffed by a team, and that has real advantages — somebody is always there, and cover exists when one person is ill. What I offer instead is one person, the same one every time, whom you met before you booked anything.
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The house, at the same time
During an overnight sit the post comes in, the bins go out, and the lights and curtains get used the way you would use them. That happens as part of the night rather than as a second booking.
The options, named plainly
Written as fairly as I can manage about people I compete with.
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Kennels
Licensed premises, your dog in a run, staff on site and a clear structure to the day. It suits plenty of dogs, particularly ones who like noise and company. What people weigh against it is the journey at both ends, collection and drop-off inside set hours, and a few unsettled days afterwards.
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A cattery
A pen of her own, people who know cats, and vaccination requirements that exist for good reason. The thing a cattery changes is territory, which happens to be the thing most cats care about most. For a cat who is relaxed anywhere, that may be no obstacle at all.
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Home boarding
Your dog stays in somebody else’s house, in their routine, usually alongside their animals. Closer to home than a kennel, and a good answer for a sociable dog. It still involves the journey and a house he doesn’t know. I don’t offer it — no dog ever comes to my house.
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The sitting apps
Rover and the others like it. I’ve been pet sitting through Rover for over a year, so that is a service I know from the inside. What changes when you book a sitter directly is that you know exactly which person is coming before you agree to anything.
Sometimes the answer is a kennel, and I’ll say so.
When a kennel or a cattery is the better choice
If your dog wants other dogs all day, a quiet house with one person in it is not an upgrade. I don’t run daycare and I don’t board, so a licensed daycare or boarder is the right call and you should make it without feeling you have let anybody down.
If your animal needs somebody physically present without gaps — recovering from an operation, very old, very young — a sit has gaps in it by definition. Tell me early and I’ll be straight with you about whether the pattern works.
If nobody in your home is comfortable giving access to somebody they have met once, then don’t. That is a reasonable position, and premises with a reception desk solve it in a way I cannot.
And if my dates are gone, they are gone. I am one person, so school holidays, Christmas and bank holidays fill early and a cattery with twelve pens does not have that problem.
Comparing the cost without the arithmetic games
I am not going to publish somebody else’s rates on my own website and ask you to trust my sums. What is worth checking on any quote before you set it beside mine:
- Whether the price is per animal or per stay
- Whether collection and drop-off hours cost you a day at each end of the holiday
- What a bank holiday is charged at
- Whether there is a minimum number of nights
Mine are flat and they are already published. £50 a night. Bank holiday nights start at £60. £15 for a half-hour visit and £22 for an hour. Send me your dates and what animals you have and I’ll give you a single figure to put next to the other quote.
Overnight, in your home
£50a night
Drop-in visits
£15 for 30 minutes · £22 for an hour
Read the detail on overnight sitting, on cat sitting, or on prices. Visits run within about five miles of York and overnight sits about fifteen miles — the full list is on areas covered.
Four questions people ask at this point
All questions and answersIs this cheaper than a cattery?
Sometimes, and sometimes not — it depends what you are comparing and how many animals are involved. Send me your dates and tell me what you have, and I’ll give you one figure to put next to the other quote rather than a range.
My dog has always gone to kennels and been fine. Should I change?
Not necessarily. If it works, it works, and there is no argument on this page that beats a dog who trots in happily. This is for the people whose animal does not.
What happens to my house while I’m away?
During an overnight sit the post gets picked up, the bins go out, and the lights and curtains get used normally. On drop-in visits I do the post and check the doors and windows each time I’m there.
Can I meet you before I decide anything?
Yes, and you have to. A meet and greet happens at your house before any booking, and nothing is agreed until after it. If it doesn’t feel right, you don’t book, and I would rather find that out at your kitchen table than a week into your holiday.
Send me your dates before you book the cattery.
Dates, your postcode and what animals you have. If I’m not free, or if I think a kennel suits your dog better, I’ll tell you in the first reply rather than after a meeting.
What happens next
I reply to say whether the dates are free.
We talk, then I come to your house to meet you and your animals.
Nothing is confirmed until after that.